Q&A: History and Biblical Criticism
History and Biblical Criticism
Question
Hello and blessings.
I read the fifth booklet, and I’m able to accept the Torah as a binding text, but! I have something to write:
Rabbi, today in academia it is already known to us that the Oral Torah is a development of the Pharisaic stream in the Second Temple period (with a combination of older traditions as well). The Pharisaic stream mainly won the people’s sympathy because it was socioeconomically closer to them, and the leaders behaved like good politicians in the agreement with Queen Salome Alexandra. And especially after the destruction, with continuous leadership, etc. The point is that the prevalence of the Oral Torah can be explained quite easily.
And in addition, the Oral Torah itself is not really fully consistent internally. I’ll give tefillin as an example:
First, Maimonides writes that there are ten matters regarding tefillin that are a law given to Moses at Sinai (such as their color, or their being square, and the like).
But when I look into the rabbinic sources, I see that the tradition is not really continuous. It says things like a person who made rounded tefillin, or a person who literally coated the tefillin with gold—what is going on?
Of course there are other cases too, like placing the tefillin in the wrong place and so on.
After that there is also the dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam about tefillin—how can there be a dispute about something based entirely on tradition? And the fact that they were grandfather and grandson only makes it more bizarre… And why did it take about 2,000 years after the giving of the Torah to start talking about this?!
Of course there are other issues that are actually within the Bible itself (the Documentary Hypothesis, contradictions, and the like), but I won’t get into that because it seems you already spoke about it earlier.
I’ll divide my question into two:
1. Do the conclusions of academia necessarily contradict faith, such that the plausibility of Judaism decreases?
2. Is it possible that the Oral Torah is simply not from Sinai?
As for #2, I looked for answers, such as that of Shadal, who says that the purpose of the Oral Torah is only to adapt Jewish law to the times.
To spell it out: according to him, there is a part of the Mishnah and Talmud that was transmitted as tradition from Sinai, but most of the laws are developments of the Sages—meaning, it’s possible that a huge amount of what we practice today is actually just human will and not a tradition passed from generation to generation all the way back to God.
Together with the gaps in the commandments (between those written in the Torah and the oral ones), and together with the crooked and non-continuous tradition, this doesn’t manage to convince me.
I’d be glad for help clarifying these things—thanks in advance!
Answer
First of all, I should note that a sentence like “today in academia it is already known to us” is, in my view, nonsense. Academia in these fields is quite dubious and speculative, saturated with assumptions and interpretations that rely on them.
As for the matter itself, obviously things develop over time. You don’t need academia for that, and therefore there is also no reason to fear academia and see it as contradicting faith. It may contradict a naive and childish faith according to which everything came down from Sinai and the whole tradition is just a hollow pipe. That is simply nonsense. When the Sages and the scholars of the generations say that everything in our hands was given to Moses at Sinai, the intention is a normative statement (that one should relate to them as though they came down from Sinai) and not a historical-factual one. There are quite a few such statements in the rabbinic literature, and commentators throughout the generations have already pointed this out.
The conclusion is that the Torah given at Sinai developed in the generations that followed, and that development joins what was given, and together all of it constitutes what we call “Torah.” Not everything we have is correct and hits the original intention of the Holy One, blessed be He. Telephone is a children’s game that shows how very hard it is to transmit a tradition without distortions creeping in. So what? The Torah was given on the understanding that we would interpret it (otherwise the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself would have had to interpret it). Therefore, for me, authenticity is not a condition for obligation. I am obligated to the Torah as it reached me, not to the original Torah—and not only because I have no way of knowing what that is. So there are presumptions, and anyone who comes to overturn something we have received bears the burden of proof.
Discussion on Answer
This is not about the right to interpret. We all have the right to interpret. It is about the validity of the interpretation that binds all of us. The interpretation of the Torah is indeed based on “do not deviate.” As for rabbinic laws, Maimonides and Nachmanides disagreed. But it is quite clear to me that even without that verse, authority would have been given to the Sages and validity to their interpretations, because otherwise it is impossible to maintain a binding normative system. There have to be binding and canonical interpretations, otherwise the biblical text has no meaning at all. Anyone can do whatever he wants with it. The Kuzari based on an argument like this the claim that the Oral Torah was given at Sinai (otherwise the words of the Torah have no meaning).
From what you write, I can understand that by the same token, if the Sadducean stream in the Second Temple period had survived today rather than the Pharisaic one, then it would have become the “binding system.”
And I have trouble understanding why it is “clear” that exclusive authority to interpret what is written would be given to the Sages—couldn’t it be that the law would not be binding in a statutory way?
Possibly. It’s also possible people would have seen that it makes no sense to give authority to interpret to those who don’t interpret. Life is complicated.
The law in the Torah does not exist without interpretations. It is almost empty of content. Even in state law, which is written much more clearly and unambiguously, there is mandatory authority given to certain interpreters. The court, not academics. And the Supreme Court’s interpretation binds everyone. That is despite the fact that a large part of this is not anchored in statute at all. There too, it is clear to everyone by simple reasoning that you cannot do without it.
I understand that a lot of reasoning is in play here.
So if it also seems reasonable to me that divine law can come in a way that is not statutory,
and any particular way of performing the commandment is simply a non-binding custom?
For example, suppose I am obligated in tzitzit but not in 8 strings; the 8 is only a custom for how to carry it out in practice.
I don’t know what “statutory” means here. What you think is what you think. What do you want from me?
Oops.
I meant statutory.
What I mean is that I don’t understand how that reasoning is binding when there are so many question marks.
And maybe a law precise down to every detail (like tefillin) just isn’t necessary.
Good morning.
Does the authority to interpret the Torah and legislate anew come only from “do not deviate,” or is there something else too?